I am reading a strong individualism here. Is that closer to your meaning? If so, I commend you and have only one criticism: As I understand it, what you are offering is a worldview that relies upon the assumption that the power required for self-determination is freely available. In other words, you seem to assume that you, Ramsus, would still have been Ramsus, even had you been born into another body, in another time or circumstance, and thus, as Ramsus, would have been able to recognize possibilities from which you might strive to best change the world according to your abilities.
I'm here to say that it is not so. If you had been born a slave, ideology and philosophy would almost certainly not have been in your life. The knowledge and formal intellectual discipline required to even have the kinds of thoughts that lead to the recognition of possibilities from which the world might be changed for the better, was not available to slaves. It isn't even available today, in our supposedly free world, because most people have not got the means to ask the questions or even make the observations that set the whole ball of self-actualization in motion.
I sympathize with your individualist streak. I feel the same way myself. Where we differ is that I perceive an onus upon those who are able to see and to ask. It isn't enough to horde what modest wisdom we have all to ourselves. To me, virtuous living requires giving others the opportunity to think for themselves, and determine their own course in life. That's why I support causes like feminism and public education, and that's why I oppose troubles like Christian fundamentalism. You see, Ramsus, the fact of the matter is this: No matter how ambitious you are...no matter how honorable you may be, or how able to learn, no matter how talented you might become, none of this counts for a damn if you are born into a society where you are controlled, oppressed, disenfranchised, marginalized, or, worse, excluded or enslaved. It's that simple.
William Gates, Sr., once pointed this out, and went on to say that it is because we choose to live in this society together, paying taxes and abiding by the rule of law, that America and other countries have been able to flourish. Without our personal willingness to invest our wallets and our liberty into this common social enterprise all around us, the police would not function, the grocery store shelves would go empty, the concert halls would be looted, and society would collapse.
If even just for our own self-interest, to say nothing of true honor, we have to concern ourselves with others. It isn't enough to treat the rest of the world as what you call “natural.” Everything has to be on the table. Everything has to be “in bounds.” No sacred cows, no unconditional respect of one another's sovereignty. We are human beings, and we must interfere. The question, therefore, is whether our interference will count for anything virtuous. But that's where individualism comes in.
Disagree you?
Most of my current philosophy owes a great deal in its formation to the same Stoic philosophy that Marcus Aurelius followed in his life, and whose philosophers included amongst their greatest ranks none other than a slave who lived nothing more than a simple and frugal life. Certainly, not everyone can know philosophy and virtue, and much of what I have is owed to circumstance, and that I do not doubt.
However, none of it is individualist, in that I've come to accept that man is a social creature, and that my role is one within society, and that my abilities exist not for selfish gain but for the changing of society and helping of others. More than that, I can feel a higher sense of purpose in the things that I do.
If I can help others see virtue and find philosophy, then certainly I have an obligation to do so, just as the slave Epictetus taught many people his beliefs. However, if I should find that doing so takes up time better suited towards other ends, such as freeing people from oppression through invention or social reform, then that is where life leads me. After all, we aren't all great teachers, and some of us must simply be doers.
That is why I spend time thinking of social change and how to improve society, but spend no time thinking of how to convert the people around me to my specific way of thinking. The odds of me being able to do the former are much better than the latter, and the latter may be of no benefit even if accomplished, as many people have already found their own philosophies that they deem adequate for life and present them with more than enough strength to serve their role in society and live virtuous lives.
And though I be emotionally indifferent to the choices others have made as they affects me, I am fully concerned with every choice that I make, as it affects others, as I believe the choices I make can influence the entire society of man, and that every moment I live helps make change. So too will I question the cause of their choices and determine, if they be destructive to themselves and to society, how to fix that problem, as these can be the basis of my own choices.
And so, in this way, I readily and daily concern much of my thinking to ways in which I can influence society to bring about better change.
My life is a social one of mostly questioning and seeing, and so I don't fully understand your criticism.
